thankyou everyone

There's just something special about having 100 followers so I  wanted to say a huge thankyou to all those who follow me, and those who leave comments.  It really means a lot :)

Our playdate numbers are growing and there were 4 of us in total at Sue's this week.  Sue had to go out unexpectedly and not knowing where she kept her crafting tablecloth, we got stuck into a clean activity - zendoodling!!!

Having completed Milliande's challenge and created a large circle of doodles in my journal, I continued in some smaller ones.

There's still more to do on this page but I'm loving how it's turning out.  Despite it being such a clean activity, we seem to have made enough mess on Sue's table lol

What was fascinating about this activity though was that we'd see a doodle someone had done and replicate it in our journal, but they still looked so different as we all had different pen thicknesses, size preference and a different way of working.

I've got some photos to share with you from my busy weekend (teaching for the first time at the Cubby Hole - fab, and a visit to the NEC) but as I have a four year old nephew hanging around my neck I'm going to leave you with this journal page which is a result of my demo at the Cubby Hole.

string, nails and an old fork for PDCC#22

 

I know, I know, but that taupe just said 'string' to me, although when I got the string out it was almost white!  Still, I liked my idea and being more of a painty, sploshy person, it was Adirondack Acrylic Dabbers that I had in these colours.

So after fighting with the string in order to crochet a flower, I then painted it with 'pebble' before putting some 'pool' and 'red pepper' highlights on there.    Adding the beads did relax me after my tussle but the flower looked a bit big and chunky on it's own...

...so I had a hunt around amongst my canvases and discovered one I'd not finished on a workshop.  It was one of Sue's workshops and I just aDoRe the cute nails hammered in around the sides.  Malc was rather suspicious that I'd been raiding his garage but was satisfied when I told him they were Sue's own nails, not even pinched from her hubby lol.  With just a slight alteration, the canvas now looks like this:

which I'm thrilled with, although it might still gain something around the stem of the flower.  It would be a word but for some reason, Malc hates words on artwork, and I rather fancy putting this one on the wall.

I would LoVe to see some mixed media pieces in the play date challenge this week; they can be small, they don't have to be this ambitious ;)

Don't forget to check out the other design team member's blogs,  there are some stunning cards this week, and you can read up on what got Stephanie into this stamping lark here.

Have a great week!!

birthday happiness

Just at the top of this photo you should be able to spy some bunting!  That was my creative output this weekend just gone. 

My sister had asked me to make some to brighten up her nursery, and I particulary wanted it done for yesterday as we had a birthday lunch there for me!

[

[I have a balloon behind my head as my sister said we needed some behind me to add to the party atmosphere of the photo!!!  Hmm]

 Jacqui, my sister, had baked me a rhubarb cake which I have to say was truly delicious!  And look at all the arty presents I got :)  I really do have lots of wonderful friends :) :) :)

 [I chose the papier mache vases and felted heart myself, they're off my fabulous husband, 

but the rest of the gifts are from people who know me very well :)]

How cute is this little mouse sitting on a toadstool?!!  My Mum found it at a teddy bear fair she was exhibiting at.  The toadstool is made from an old reel of thread.

I had a really brilliant birthday, full of happiness and good wishes, to which I am truly, truly grateful as I love birthdays and last year's was just miserable.

ps sneak peeks on their way for my back to back art journalling  classes at the Stamp Attic on 10/11th April; and looking forward to my first art journalling class at the Cubby Hole this Saturday :)

time for some more fresh spring colours in the play date cafe

I can't wait for the cherry blossom to be out.  They are my favourite-est spring flowers :)  I just LoVeD working with Mona's colour choice this week.  In fact, when I was writing up my last post, I realised I'd used this colour combo in Sue's journal when we did our round robin, working in each other's journals.  That was me being cheeky as Sue isn't really a pink person ;)

I have adirondack paint dabbers in these colours and I just LoVe using these as they make applying paint to paper, stamps, through stencils etc, just so easy.  So I made a layered background which I then cut into a butterfly shape and stitched to my card.

I stencilled through the lace on the butterfly piece,  then painted it up completely before mounting it on the card.  The yellow flowers are drawn with my sewing machine , I do so love doing that!!

Thanks for coming over!  I do appreciate all your comments :)  Don't forget to visit the play date cafe and see all the other yummy cards our designers came up with this week.  I love them all :)  And you can read about how Savannah, one of our new designers, got into stamping.

finally caught up...Dina Wakely workshops

Sue and I had a real treat earlier this month.....we went up to Art from the Heart in Harrogate where Dina Wakely was teaching two days of workshops.

I've been keeping my eye on Dina's blog for a while as I love her use of 'white space' on the page, as well as her splodgy, inky, splattery effects.  

Dina was working in the most enormous book (full of yummy paper :)  )

Day One saw us exploring masks, and thinking about image placement on the page.  It was great to use masks that I wouldn't normally try...stars and flowers are usually my choice of image, but I love how the lady (she did have a name, Betty probably!!) turned out.

The people on the workshop were a great bunch and it was amazing to see how we all started with the same prompts yet produced such different work.

We were kept thoroughly entertained, and the snacks also kept us laughing!!!

On the way in to Art from the Heart we met Milliande (centre of photo below), whose online videos on art journalling I've watched.  [do check them out, I think they are brilliant!]

We discovered we were all staying in the same place so hooked up later for dinner and a good chat, with time later to share our journals.

[sorry for the poor photo, it was a bit dark in the room; thought it was worth sharing the piccie anyway]

Milliande had some gorgeous pages in her journal and showed us some she'd done for her January 'page a day'.

Day 2 involved a change of seat, a change of name [i just fancied being labelled differently so I was 'Alice', Sue was 'Fred', and we certainly weren't short of other cheeky girls to join in the fun :) ] and lots of layering.

We were very definitely the noisy end of the table, which surprised Dyan, she'd got the impression from my blog and the lovely things people say about me that I was quiet!!!! ;)

Er, no, not when I'm happy!  And throwing myself into my artwork

I felt like Harry Potter giving my page a good old splattering!! [Only when he holds a stick like this it's to conjure up a magic spell]. 

 

I love the layered piece I made that morning.  Milliande concentrated on making a piece in her journal with 'white space', and succeeded wonderfully [sorry I didn't get a piccie of it] and even used peeloffs  to great effect!

Actually, there was a distinct lack of peeloffs in this workshop, we had to bring our own ;) lol  Not that I could persuade Sue to use hers!!!  I do love the colours she used in this piece.

 I played with embedding objects...

before focusing on leaving a 'white space' on a page.  This is still unfinished, but I'm pleased with it so far.

As the workshop was over by about 4pm, we decided to continue back at the Premier Inn.  This is a bit difficult to do in one of their rooms as there is limited space, but sweet talking the lady at the reception desk (or putting your foot in it, which is what I did - fancy mentioning paint!!!) meant we got to play in the meeting room.

We set out our 'stuff'', then worked on each other's journals for a timed ten minutes at a time, before moving onto the next one.  My camera battery gave out at this point so Milliande took the piccies.  It was a fabulous experience, and I love my resulting page :)

Day three saw us travelling back down the motorway after a sneaky visit to Harrogate for brunch.  And look who came in after us!!!  Great minds and all that!!

bits n bobs

Just a few bits n bobs to share today.  It was Mothers' Day here in the UK yesterday.  My Mum is in the US at the minute so I've not made her card yet, but I did get one made for Malc's Mum.

I love to add little snippets to my cards, and really enjoyed sewing this one together.  But why can I never design and make a card in ten minutes?!!

 

The flower is by Wendy Vecchi and is stamped onto some card I had sprayed with lilac ink.  The centre is a prima flower and the rest is just bits n pieces from around my craft room :)

Last week saw me in the plant nursery that my sister runs.  We were creating a centre piece to the room based on the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.  It's not finished yet, but it was great fun making bird feeders from cups and saucers, and planting herbs in jugs and cups :)

 

I managed to squeeze in some time today to complete a zentangle, something I've wanted to play with for ages.  Milliande put a challenge on her blog to draw a zentangle within a handshape within a mandala.  So here's mine:

This is across two pages in my journal so I think I'll add more circles around it, of various size, and maybe do a zentangle border.

catching up

I had such a busy week last week I was exhausted for days!!  But I really wanted to share some of the things I was up to.  The most recent was the second of my Art Journalling workshops, imaginatively titled 'Art Journalling 2', which I taught it at Paddy's Stamping Place. [now on tour in Crewe and Wantage ;)] 

Look how studious my students are, bless them!

Art journalling for me is about taking time to play, so we spent time exploring fun and unusual ways of adding colour and texture to our journals.

I officially lost my marbles that day!  But what a fabulous effect :)  How cool would journalling look like written on those yellow lines?

And although the shaving foam was a bit messy, it smelt delicious :)

Unfortunately my camera battery died on the second workshop, but masking over these delicate stencilled patterns with a strong colour is just stunning, I promise you!

Then there's stencilling through a sink drainer mat..

..and through a potato masher.  Later we spent time playing a game that resulted in us adding different layers to our pages in random order.

This resulted in some very different pages, as well as lots of relaxed and happy people.

These pages are still works in progress, but you can already see how exciting they will be!

The best thing about teaching art journalling though, is seeing how people relax and start to enjoy the materials they are using.  Thanks everyone, I had a GReaT time :)